Signs of Life: Red Sox Games 80-82 (@NYY)

On Saturday night, the Red Sox slugged a go-ahead hit in the eighth inning or later for the 11th time this season. (They’ve got six since May 29, and four in June — two by Mike Napoli, two by David Ortiz.) For a team that’s only won 38 games, yanking reasonably close to a third of them out with late heroics? At least they’re injecting a little spice in it.

By winning twice in New York, the Red Sox actually exceeded my highly scientific “they’ll win once in each city” prediction for their road trip. A 4-6 rumble through Oakland, Seattle, and the Bronx doesn’t feel like a step forward, but it doesn’t feel like a step back either. Especially not after Friday, on the short list for Boston’s worst offensive performances of the year.

Vidal Nuno had a 5.88 ERA coming into that series opener, and had allowed 12 earned runs in his prior 9 1/3 innings. The Red Sox didn’t so much get a runner to third against him in 5 2/3 innings — 0-for-5 against his fastball (which, to be fair, hitters are under .200 against this season), 1-for-7 against his slider (which they’re .342 against this season), and without a single well-hit ball (per Inside Edge) in 19 total at-bats against him.

You can’t call Brandon Workman a tough-luck loser when he gave up a pair of homers and four runs in seven innings, but despite throwing 70 percent strikes and getting the Yankees to chase nearly half his out-of-the-zone pitches when he got ahead, he never had a chance.

It was with that backdrop than GM Ben Cherington spoke before Saturday’s game, on the occasion of Mookie Betts’ callup after all of 90 at-bats and 23 games in Triple-A. (And all of one year after he was playing for Low-A Greenville.) Quoting from WEEI.com’s report:

“I think we’re looking at every way to improve the team. It’s still probably a little early for the trades to start happening and so based on Mookie’s performance and our confidence in him, we felt like this move makes sense now.”

“We’re trying to look realistically and be honest with where we are. I’m not sugarcoating where we are. It’s not where we want to be. We’ve created a deficit for ourselves. But we still think the deficit is one we can overcome. We still believe in the talent, we believe we can be a good team this year.”

“I understand we can put potential moves into one bucket or the other. We can put moves into the ‘seller’ bucket or the ‘buyer’ bucket, and I get it. But I’m not sure every move falls neatly into either of those buckets. We’re going to try to make the organization better and the team better. We think we can do it this year. We’ll see if we can. If that picture changes again, we’ll have to adjust.”

That night, the Sox put four runners in scoring position, delivered zero hits with those runners in those positions, and won anyway. What is rapidly becoming the 2014 model — the team that won just once the first 22 times this season they scored two or fewer runs, they’ve won four times the last eight times they’ve done it. (Those eight times coming in their last 13 games.)

But then came Sunday, a shoutout to the 2013 model, heretofore known as “how offense works.”

First inning, two clean singles, but snuffed out when Ortiz turned a 3-0 pitch into a double play. Second inning, Napoli floats a double inside the left-field line thanks to the Yankees shifting him toward right, then scores on a sac fly and a clean Stephen Drew single (!) through the right side. Third inning, they follow a Brock Holt walk with a nice hit and run, just in time for Ortiz to propel a Chase Whitley inside fastball 424 feet for career homer No. 450.

A 4-0 lead later supplemented by turning three fifth-inning walks into three runs. (Two on a Pedroia single, one during a Pedroia rundown — one of two they got caught in.) They needed the help with John Lackey less than sharp — six hits, including two long homers, and just four swings-and-misses on 45 swings. But it’s not like the pitchers haven’t earned the pick-me-up.

And all of a sudden, the schedule eases a bit. A 10-game homestand, followed by three games in Houston, followed by the All-Star break, followed by three more at home with admittedly feisty Kansas City. Those 16 games gets us to July 20 — 11 days from the trade deadline, and a point at which it will no longer be “a little early for the trades to start happening.”

The math remains largely the same, these 10 games of wheel spinning not a death knell, but 10 more games where a surge didn’t come. It’d take an 11-5 tear better than anything we’ve seen this season just to get the Sox back to .500. While they’re just six games adrift of the Blue Jays with 13 weeks to play, that’s a more significant deficit than you think. In the last six seasons, there’s only been one team (the 2012 A’s, who were 13 games back and closed an absurd 57-26) to come from that far behind on the morning of July 1 to claim a division title.

While the Sox are just six games back of Seattle for the second wild card, they’re tied for eighth in a two-team race for those spots.

Of note, the 2013 Rays were six games back in the AL East on the morning of July 1, and ended up going 49-32 to snag that second wild card. However, a couple differences — they were just 3.5 back in the wild-card race that day, and they were third among the pursuers.

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Jon Couture

Jon Couture has been covering the Red Sox for The Standard-Times since the 2003 playoffs, when management asked him the odd question, "Would you like to go to New York to cover the first two games of the ALCS?" Though he missed the memorable Don ... Read Full